Business Conference “Bulgaria – Pakistan: Opportunities for Cooperation in Trade and Tourism”

BCCI hosted a business conference “Bulgaria – Pakistan: Opportunities for Cooperation in Trade and Tourism”. The event was organized by the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in cooperation with Bridging Trade International and the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in Sofia.

Tsvetan Simeonov, President of BCCI, opened the conference, welcoming the guests from Pakistan who represented companies working in the field of tourism, textile industry, leather industry, sports equipment, automotive industry, food industry, etc.

Bulgaria has the advantage of being the closest EU member-state to Pakistan, Simeonov underlined. The guests got acquainted with the possibility to use the voluntary Unified Trade Register of BCCI as well as the other services provided by the Chamber to find future partners in Bulgaria.

H.E. Marwan Alex Ayyash, Chargé d’Affaires a.i. of the Embassy of Pakistan in Sofia, also welcomed the participants in the conference. He pointed out some important facts about the economic cooperation between the two countries. For example, it takes about 6-7 days to transport a container of goods by truck from Pakistan to Bulgaria. Bilateral trade between the countries amounted to USD 34 million in 2018, but there is potential for growth. In the middle of this year, an agreement was signed between Pakistan and Bulgaria on the avoidance of double taxation.

The event ended with b2b meetings between the interested companies from both countries.